Friday, March 22, 2013
Group calls $1 state aid increase to South Brunswick schools a "bad joke."
A small group of township parents held a rally outside the South Brunswick Board of Education offices Thursday in protest of the $1 increase given to South Brunswick schools for the 2013-14 school year. In his budget address earlier this month, Gov. Chris Christie said 378 school districts in New Jersey would get a funding increase for the 2014 fiscal year. State aid to to the South Brunswick School District went up by $1, with Middlesex County schools in total receiving a boost in aid of about $7.5 million for next year. "For the last three years, my family and thousands of other families in South Brunswick have lived with the consequences of Gov. Christie's massive cuts to public education in 2010," said South Brunswick parent and Save …
Friday, March 1, 2013
District still awaiting federal aid figures pending potential sequestration spending cuts.
In his budget address on Tuesday, Gov. Chris Christie said 378 school districts in New Jersey would get a funding increase, and no K-12 school's aid would decrease for the 2014 fiscal year. This message held true for South Brunswick as a district where aid was increased. Barely. State aid to to the South Brunswick School District went up by $1, according to figures released by the governor's office on Thursday. Middlesex County schools in total saw a boost in aid of about $7.5 million for next year. South Brunswick will see a total of $23,220,341 in aid for 2013-14. District officials could not immediately be reached for comment after the figures were released Thursday afternoon. South Brunswick received a more substantial increase last …
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Christie, Cerf appear poised to once again try to cut extra funds for low-income students.
In a likely preview of Gov. Chris Christie’s next state budget for public education – and the debates that will surely follow – his administration has put forward a report that proposes increasing some levels of school funding while reducing others. The proposals are part of the long-awaited Educational Adequacy Report submitted to the Legislature, which is required under the state’s 2008 School Funding Reform Act as a way to periodically update the state-aid formula to meet changing education costs. Sent to the Legislature on Friday, the largely technical report by state Education Commissioner Chris Cerf reiterated many of Christie’s long-standing criticisms that additional funding under the state Supreme Court’s landmark Abbott v. Burke …
Saturday, August 11, 2012
With first public hearing set, Education Task Force begins study of NJ’s school funding formula.
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Saturday, August 11, 2012
t’s been quiet since they were first appointed, but Gov. Chris Christie’s Education Funding Task Force will make its first public appearance with a hearing next week in Fort Lee. The seven-member task force was created by executive order in March in the aftermath of Christie’s state budget proposal for fiscal 2013 with the task of studying the state’s school funding formula. It specifically was charged with studying how the state measures poverty as part of the formula by districts’ and schools’ enrollment of children in federal subsidized lunch programs. It is a critical -- and controversial -- topic given the heavier weight in funding for children from low-income families. It became especially charged last winter with allegations that …
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Democrats preserve funding formula while awaiting Cerf’s report on formal plan.
New Jersey’s fiscal 2013 budget may be signed -- give or take a line item or two -- but the debate over how to distribute its largest slice of spending is far from over. Gov. Chris Christie sought in his budget proposal to rewrite parts of the state’s school funding formula, tweaking the intricate methods for determining how much districts receive from the state for individual children. The $8 billion distributed to districts represents close to a quarter of all state spending. But the Democrat-led Legislature succeeded in tweaking it right back in the final budget approved last week, as it removed all the budget language in Christie’s proposal that would have essentially codified his changes. The Democrats left intact the final aid …
Monday, February 27, 2012
Complicated formula hits some NJ cities hard while suburban schools see gains.
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Monday, February 27, 2012
The first details are out in Gov. Chris Christie’s trumpeted increase in state aid for New Jersey public schools next year, showing a much more complicated picture that will mean big increases for some schools but sharp cuts for others. Released late yesterday by Christie’s office, the state aid figures for each district under the governor’s $32.1 billion budget are, at first look, short on clear patterns. Some of the state’s larger urban districts will be hit the hardest in actual dollars, with Camden for instance losing $5.5 million (2 percent) and East Orange $2.9 million (1.7 percent). But it’s not universal: Newark loses a relatively small $600,000 out of a nearly $1 billion budget, and Jersey City is actually slated to get a single …
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
With Cerf working on a report about school funding, some districts are already resigned to seeing no increases.
When Gov. Chris Christie releases his state budget next week, his proposed income tax cut will grab a lot of attention. But the biggest -- and possibly the toughest -- questions may have to do with state aid to schools, which accounts for one-third of the overall budget. The Christie administration has so far been mum or at best vague as to what it will propose for public schools next year. Meanwhile, acting education commissioner Chris Cerf has been working on a court-ordered report to the legislature that revisits the formulas used in the School Funding Reform Act to determine if they provide enough -- or too much -- aid to districts. Although SFRA covers all New Jersey school districts, if the formulas are revised it could have a …
Suraj Khasnavees
3:59 pm on Thursday, April 4, 2013
@Tugwalia sorry if this comes off as rude, but I believe my perspective of the SAT (as a student) is more revealing than yours (as an adult). Many of my friends who are incredibly smart and will go on to do great things (and yes, do amazingly in school as well!) study for hours but yet are unable to do well on it. Standardized tests, as I've said before, are not meant for everyone. They do not … more ›